Fianna Fáil TD for Mayo Dara Calleary has accused the Government of ignoring opportunities to effectively deal with the housing crisis in the county. New information, released to the party through a series of Freedom of Information requests, reveals that there are almost 150 vacant properties on Mayo County Council’s books.
Deputy Calleary commented: “These figures outline the complete disconnect between Minister Alan Kelly and the worsening situation on the ground. At the same time that he is denying the extent of the crisis in Mayo, he is slashing the funding for refurbishment works for local authority housing. The information released to my party reveals that there are over 2,600 vacant units across the country. One hundred and forty five of these are in Mayo. These are homes which could be easily upgraded and used for social housing, however over the past year the budget for refurbishment works has been cut by over €89,000.
“Since Minister Kelly took office the housing and homelessness situation has worsened immeasurably. The number of people on the social housing list in Mayo has been rising steadily and now stands at almost 3,000. The Minister’s assurances that he has the crisis under control carry no credibility and mismanagement of this area has been brutally exposed with the crisis becoming a full blown emergency.
“This Government has been unable to formulate any short term strategy to tackle the housing issue. The fact that there are 145 housing units lying vacant in Mayo shows the serious disconnect between the Minister and the situation on the ground. Funding needs to be made available without delay to refurbish these homes and take families off the waiting list. People across this county are suffering because of the failure of this Government and this Minister to get a handle on the situation. We need less spin and more action.”
